In general, a camera module for a small electronic device with a digital camera often includes a small lens module to prioritize size reduction and is capable of photographing just an image having a small angle of view. To photograph a wide-angle object such as a scenery photograph by using the above-described digital camera with a small lens module, partially overlapping images that are photographed a number of times are combined into one image.
To specify a position at which the partially overlapped images are combined, a photographer obtains a plurality of images to be combined at the time of photographing a plurality of images by following a guide displayed on a finder screen and repeating the photographing operation while adjusting the device to a correct direction.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-236910 discloses the technique for combining a plurality of images based on a set positioning amount and a set combining part between the plurality of partially overlapped images.
To photograph an image having a large angle of view using a camera module with a lens having a small angle of view, a photographer photographs an image while dividing the image into a plurality of sections and then combines the photographed images. At the time of performing this combining processing, the photographer follows the guide displayed on the finder screen and repeats the photographing operation while adjusting the device to the correct direction. Accordingly, in addition to the complexity of the operation, the images may be misaligned in the combining part if the photographer is unfamiliar with the operation and fails to adjust the device to the correct direction.
Although it is possible to combine images from successive images photographed as a motion picture into a panoramic image, the panoramic image may be difficult to compose by simply combining adjacent images because the successive images in the motion picture include various movements of a person, an object, or the like.